Adrenaline by Benjamin Pearce - Comedy - Erin and Mitchell Librias, Two bickering brothers must resort to their knowledge of pop culture films and video games after they return to their home town and discover a waterborne parasite has infected the minds of their hosts, turning them hostile and killing any uninfected survivors to silence them while they plot to spread the pandemic and cause world destruction. Once the brothers band with six survivors, as they attempt to stop the infected and infamous drug lord Chet Saddler, the leader of the infected. However, once Mitch is kidnapped by Saddler, it's a balls-to-the-wall no holds barred adrenaline fulled thrill ride as Erin and the remaining survivors go to the colosseum, where all of the infected gather, to save his brother. 124 pages - pdf, format 8)

Hey Ben,

Haven't seen you around the boards.  I'll read a little bit of this and if you show up, I'll gladly read more. :)

I'm guessing the quotes on your title page are possible taglines.  I've never seen that on a script before, but you should definitely use "Cool Apocalypse, Bro."

Anyways, this is obviously a shooting script, which is hard to read.  Are you planning on producing this yourself?

The opening scene is really difficult to understand.  Everyone has guns and their names are "Man" and "Other Man".  This doesn't help me visualize anything.

You don't introduce Mitch and Erin properly.  No ages, physical descriptions etc.

What's going on here?  "What's that box?"  What box?  You haven't stated there's a box anywhere in the room.  "He looks at it?"  You didn't even mention the box.

"Alright, I�ll be right back. Going
to go return this package, and then
we�ll go get something to eat".

This is a great example of repetitive, on-the-nose dialogue.  You already said they would return the package and watch a movie.  Why say it again?  More importantly, why are they saying it to each other?  They already know what's happening.

"Yeah! That starts today, actually.
So that�s where we are going when
we�re done here."

No one says that.  Have you ever said that in your life?

"ERIN
Die Hard, Attack the Block, and
Resident Evil 4.
MITCH
The game?
ERIN
No, Afterlife.
MITCH
Oh, that one sucked.
ERIN
Really?
MITCH
Yeah.
ERIN
Damn!"

I understand you're building character here, but we know at this point that they are movie fans.  This conversation doesn't reveal any character.  It's like we're watching two people talk on a sidewalk with no plot.

I do like the homage to the Guy Richie Sherlock Holmes movies with the slow mo fights and stuff.  That was funny.

You also show scenes from Hot Fuzz in your script.  That could cause some copyright issues.

"INSERT MONTAGE SCENE HERE PLOX"  What does that mean?

We're on page twenty here and nothing has happened.  I've seen two teens talk about movies for twenty minutes and the only exciting thing that's happened is them deluding themselves into thinking buying guns will make them superheroes.

Sorry to be so harsh, Ben, but there's no plot or structure here, thus far.  If I hadn't read the logline, I'd have no idea where this is going.  Twenty minutes is a LONG TIME to watch kids talk about movies.

If you show up on the boards, I'll read the rest.

EDIT: In retrospect, this is probably your first feature.  You're going to make it homemade, right?  Sorry to be harsh, I thought you were going to sell it.  I still stand by my opinion that this needs tons of work though.  Without a good script, you will not have a good home movie.

Gage

Intital thoughts on the logline, it's more of a log-paragraph. Might wanna pare it down to the essentials. And I'm not sure this sentence makes any sense:

"Once the brothers band with six survivors, as they attempt to stop the infected and infamous drug lord Chet Saddler, the leader of the infected..."

Hello Benjamin,

Sorry to say, but for me, this was a snooze fest. Two guys shoot each each playing paint ball and curse one another and then spend 10 minutes talking about their favourite films and the issues with the postal system. Apart from alot of bad language, I missed the comedy element you were aiming for.

The VO on the fight sequence - again, lost on me. Was this some hommage or rip off of Sherlock Holmes??

Keep in mind, Juice, that this film will have a run time of about two hours and twenty minutes.
My idea with the first thirty pages is not just to show that they are brothers and love movies, but the first thirty pages foreshadows the rest of the film. The reason for the dragging of the beginning is due to show that these are just two nerdy brothers going through their every day life. All it took was one antagonist and a vivid imagination to inspire these two nerds to buy guns.
Also, the thirty pages are intentionally done to get the audience thinking "alright, so where is this leading." Also the reason is to show that all of the events in this film take place in less than twenty-four hours.
I'm glad you enjoy the Sherlock Holms reference. This whole entire film is a homage itself, answering Eoin's question.
My purpose was to take the film on a 180 degree turn, and reveal some tension, then another 180 once they discover the parasite involvement, and then yet again another 180 turn in the film reviling the reasoning for the parasites. The main villan isn't reviled until about the last thirty pages or so, done as an Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom reference. Also in a From Dusk till Dawn style with the plot twists.
The reasoning for my possible laziness on the writing end with the montage scenes is because I already have those scenes storyboarded out, and just simply did not feel inspired to write the montage scenes.
Any other questions, feel free to ask.
  

Yeah, I get where you're going here, but it just takes too long, man.  Two hours and twenty minutes?  You better have a damn epic for a runtime that long.  Thirty minutes to foreshadow and build character is a long time.

Also, the ending feels a bit like a copout.  They kill one guy and ALL of the parasites die?  I know that's supposed to be an homage to something, but it just feels like lazy writing.

Oh well.  I checked out your youtube page and it looks like you have a lot of this movie already made, so I don't really see how I can help at this point.

Gage

There's no need to feel offended. The video you saw on YouTube is just the fake trailer filmed with my mini Panasonic camcorder. The actual film is being filmed with A Sony fs100 and a Panasonic AG-DVX 100. and amazing audio and lighting equipment from my professor from my film class. I have connections to John Russo and Russ Striner, who were my mentors when I had film school at the John Russo Movie Making program.
The ending was not a cop out to me. I can see the "all of the infected died" being a "what the hell" feel for the audience. Maybe they didn't catch on to my "Faculty" reference. The ending was supposed to be a "Shit, what do we do now." ending. The two brothers will appear in future movies in supporting roles I already have planned to make after Adrenaline.
I can still take advice on what you'd like to see or not see in specific scenes. I also intended on cutting dialogue from the final cut of the film anyway.

Wow. I'm trying to think of the last comedy that was over 2 hours. Sex and the City 2, maybe?
It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World?

I guess if you are filming this yourself...then the writing doesn't have to look  'pretty'....BUT to read it for me was confusing and I didn't get past page one.

Even if you have a great story ....I would suggest trimming it. Two hours is WAY too long for this type story IMO.

The site you made for it was kinda kewl. Hope the best for you with this! Keep us  posted.

If this was a straight-up comedy, I would agree with you, yellow. However I think due to the layout of the story, the amount of characters, amount of plot turns, I honestly don't feel two hours is enough.
Although this is categorized as a comedy, there are the obvious elements of action, sci-fi, drama, and horror all working with the comedy element as well.
Thank you for liking the website.
I will be sure to keep everybody posted about production. If anybody would like to see anything added or changed about the story for the film, I would be happy to take it into consideration and give credit in the "special thanks" section.

I only read a few pages, so I'm not ready to comment on anything about the script.  But I feel I must comment about the projected length of the film.  2:20 is waaaay too long.  You need to be 90-110 mins max.  Also, I don't care how long your film is, I better be ready to follow your character by page 20.  

Keep in mind that viewers don't say, "I'm not interested at 20 mins, but I know I this film is long so I'll stick around."  It's actually the other way around.  If there is a character they really want to follow, they will hang on for a long time.

Tough read for me with the writing style. I  Agree with post on top. I read 30 pages and just kind of got bored and started to try and think of other ways to help you.  The only thing I can add is to re-read the dialog and see if you sound natural reading it.

EX:

  MITCH
Well MAYBE if you didn’t suck so
bad at aiming, you would have hit
me first, hence... this situation
would have not FUCKING escalated!

maybe WOULD'VE would be better.

EX
CASHIER
Thank you for your purchase, have a
nice day.

I've bought a lot of things in my life and never recall someone saying thank you for your PURCHASE.  Sounds like I'm reading a book on proper english

Ex
MITCH
How could this have happened? How
long were we gone? What? Like two,
maybe three hours? How do we miss
this much shit in two hours? What
the hell happened?

Some dialog too long.  Should be no longer than 3 lines.

Hope this helps.  Cut down to 3 lines and sound natural.

OTTER